Report for Knoq South Africa

knoq.co.za: AEO and SEO test

22 Oct 2026 by Lumanaire

SEO is showing up on Google and Bing. AEO is being named when people ask AI assistants such as ChatGPT. This test shows where knoq.co.za stands on both today, and the fixes to make first.

0 of 13renter questions where Knoq was named

0 pagesof knoq.co.za in our search tool, even for “site:knoq.co.za”

2 reportswith Knoq’s own rent data, the best pages to build on

20fixes, ranked, top 5 first

Summary

Where knoq.co.za stands today

On 22 Oct (09:58 to 09:59 SAST) knoq.co.za did not show up in AI answers, and our search tool held no page of it at all: not for 15 renter questions, not for “knoq.co.za”, not even for “site:knoq.co.za”.

In our 13 test questions Knoq was named in none. The answers named Private Property, Gumtree, Property24, Seeff and PayProp’s rent index, and they read Gumtree, Daily Investor, Private Property’s advice pages, The Citizen, BusinessTech, IOL and Personal Finance. A search for “Knoq” itself returns other businesses: knoq.com (a US door to door sales app) and look-alike names.

Good today

The site is quick in our own lab test, secure, and open to Google and to every AI crawler we tried. It already holds something most rivals lack: two rental market reports built on Knoq’s own listing data, with median rents by city and bedroom, what R10,000 a month buys, and new listings a week.

Holding it back: plumbing and signals

There is no sitemap and no canonical tag on any page.
The www address serves a second full copy of the site.
There is no structured data.
The 11 FAQ answers are hidden from crawlers.
There is no terms page.
Both reports end with leftover browser add-on boxes, and the national report still says Knoq First is “R99 for 30 days” while the site sells a R199 pass for 60 days.

Where Knoq can win

The AI answers said out loud that they could find:

no rental alert app for South African renters,
no site that searches Property24, Private Property and agency sites together,
no reliable figure for how fast Cape Town rentals let.

Knoq can be the answer to all three.

What to do

Ranked fix list

Each fix with the page, the change, the effort, the impact and who does it. The top 5 come first.

Effort S = hours, M = 1 to 3 days, L = a week or more.

Who Us = code change by Lumanaire; Knoq = content or a decision by Knoq; Owners = a step in an account.

Top 5, do these first

Top 5

Fix 1: Give Google one address and a map

Add /sitemap.xml with the 9 public pages (the 7 site pages and the 2 reports) and name it in robots.txt; send www.knoq.co.za to knoq.co.za with a permanent redirect; add a canonical tag to every public page; submit the sitemap in Search Console (DNS already holds two Google verification records, so the domain is most likely verified) and in Bing Webmaster Tools.

WhereSite, Vercel domain settings, Search Console, Bing EffortS ImpactHigh WhoUs (code), Owners (accounts; the redirect with the owners’ OK)

Top 5

Fix 2: Show the FAQ answers

Put all 11 answers in the page HTML (closed answers hidden by styling, or plain details and summary) and add FAQPage markup with the same words; name the monitored sites in “Which property websites do you monitor?”, if Knoq is happy to.

WhereHome page (/) and /faq EffortS ImpactHigh WhoUs, Knoq (the site names)

Top 5

Fix 3: Clean up and promote the two reports

Remove the leftover add-on panel from both and the broken stylesheet link from the national report; change “R99 for 30 days” to the R199 60-day pass; state the data period and method at the top of each; add a canonical, a link card, a “last updated” date and Article and Dataset markup; link both reports from the home page’s market section.

Where/insights and both reports EffortS ImpactHigh WhoUs, Knoq (period and method)

Top 5

Fix 4: Say what Knoq is in search words

Title “Knoq: rental alerts from South Africa’s major listing sites” (59 characters); a description naming Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, for example “Rental alerts for Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, from South Africa’s major listing sites, straight to your inbox.” (127); a line “Rental alerts for all of South Africa” with the H1; the page language set to en-ZA.

Where/ and the root layout EffortS ImpactHigh WhoKnoq (wording), Us (code)

Top 5

Fix 5: Show who runs Knoq South Africa

Organization, WebSite and WebApplication markup (Knoq, Knoq (Pty) Ltd, registration number, logo, support address, Trustpilot, the free plan and the R199 pass, South Africa; see the markup sample for the developers); an about page and a terms page as set out under Content; link both from the footer.

WhereAll pages, a new /about and /terms EffortS to M ImpactHigh WhoUs, Knoq (facts and terms text)

Then, in this order

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Fixes 6 to 20, in rank order
Fix	Page	Change	Effort	Impact	Who
6 Publish how fast rentals go	New page, for example /insights/how-fast-rentals-go	Monthly, by city: new listings seen, time from listing to removal, share first seen on agency sites, with the method and date; Article and Dataset markup	M	High	Knoq (what may be shown), Us (build)
7 City and suburb pages	New /cape-town, /johannesburg, /pretoria, /durban, then suburbs	As set out under Content: the four cities first, then the suburbs the reports name; totals only, no copied adverts; noindex thin ones; add them to the sitemap; link them from the home page and the reports	L	High	Us, Knoq (sign off)
8 More real reviews	Trustpilot, home banner	Invite real users to review on Trustpilot once they find a home; keep the home banner’s score in step with Trustpilot (it is fixed at 4.0 in the code); never write or buy reviews	S to start	High	Owners, Us (banner)
9 Get into the news sites AI reads	Off site	Offer the reports’ numbers (median rents by city, what R10,000 buys, new listings a week) to BusinessTech, Daily Investor, IOL, The Citizen and Personal Finance; ask “best property apps” writers to include Knoq	M	Medium to high	Owners
10 Guides that answer the questions	New guide pages	“How to see new Cape Town rentals first”, “Finding a flat in Durban fast”, “What R10,000 rents across South Africa” (from the national report), “Agent or private landlord: what the listings show”; rooms to share only if Knoq covers them	M	Medium to high	Knoq (we can draft), Us
11 Social profiles	Footer and markup	Link Knoq’s real profiles from the footer and the Organization markup; confirm @KnoqApp in the link card is Knoq’s own, or remove it	S	Medium	Owners, then Us
12 Sign-up page readable without JavaScript	/signup	Server render the H1 and two lines on what happens next (16 words without JavaScript today)	M	Medium	Us
13 IndexNow	Site	Add an IndexNow key so Bing hears about new city pages and report editions at once	S	Medium (with 6 and 7)	Us
14 Watch AI visits	Vercel request logs, read only	A weekly read of which AI bots fetched which pages (Dodo’s crawler check); no site change	S	Medium (measurement)	Us
15 Per page share cards	All pages	Each page its own og:title and og:description, plus og:url	S	Low	Us
16 Keep the legal pages true	/privacy	Replace the Stripe line with the payment provider in use and update the date	S	Low for search, trust	Knoq
17 llms.txt	/llms.txt	A short plain summary: what Knoq is, areas, plans, the reports, key links	S	Low	Us
18 Accessibility fixes	/, /faq and the reports	The label contrast on the home page, the lighter text and heading jump on /faq, a main area in the reports	S	Low for search, good practice	Us
19 Small tidy-ups	Site root and media	favicon.ico, a site icon with the flag pin, a lighter desktop hero video (5.8 MB today)	S	Low	Us
20 Google Business Profile and Bing Places	None	Leave for now (not eligible, see Off-site)	None	Low	Owners

Method

How we tested: the Dodo AEO way

The same method as our knoq.uk test of 21 Oct. Dodo AEO’s free audit works like this:

A first look at the site: can AI search bots reach it, is the main text readable without JavaScript, can Google and Bing index it.
Ten or more buyer questions in the buyer’s own words, plus control questions that the planned fixes should not touch.
Each question goes to ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity with web search on. Each answer is read for: is the business named, at what position, who is named instead, and which sites are cited.
The report sums it up: named in X of Y answers with a likely range, who AI names instead, and the sites AI reads. Fixes come from a fixed list of types (home page, service page, FAQ, structured data, AI bot access, text readable without JavaScript, about and contact, guide or comparison page, listings on other sites, Google Business Profile, reviews).
Later rounds give a verdict: how far the test questions moved, minus how far the controls moved.

What we changed for this test

Step 3 needs paid OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity accounts, which we did not use. The stand in was one web search per question through our own search tool, read the same way (two wordings for questions 2 and 13). That tool searches from the US, so South African results can differ, likely more than they did for the UK.

How we checked the site

Site checks used direct requests and a headless browser, paced to one request a second, plus an offline replay of the recorded files for the speed estimate, and we read the site’s code. Read only: nothing on knoq.co.za, its code, hosting or Search Console was changed. No sign-ins, no forms, no messages. Load on the site: 73 requests to knoq.co.za in all, never more than one a second.

22 Oct, 09:53 to 09:56 SAST

Dodo first look

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Dodo first look checks
Check	Result	Evidence
AI search bots can reach the site	Pass	robots.txt allows every crawler. The home page answered 200 with the same 861 word page to Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and CCBot (09:55:58 to 09:56:08). This tests by name only; a firewall rule that checks bot IP addresses cannot be tested from outside.
Main text readable without JavaScript	Partly	Home: the server HTML holds 861 words, the H1 and every section, but not one of the 11 FAQ answers (only the questions). /faq: 155 words, the questions only. /signup: 16 words and no heading. The two market reports are plain HTML with about 2,000 and 1,500 words: good.
Google and Bing can index the pages	Yes, but nothing guides them	No noindex tag or header on the 9 public pages (7 site pages and 2 reports), robots.txt open. But there is no sitemap, no canonical tag on any page, and https://www.knoq.co.za/ serves a second full copy of the site. Our search tool found no knoq.co.za page at all (09:59).

AEO

15 renter questions (13 test, 2 control)

Run 22 Oct, 09:57 to 10:04 SAST (questions 1 to 4 at 09:57, 5 to 8 at 09:57 to 09:58, 9 to 12 at 09:58, 13 and the controls at 09:58 to 09:59, the second wording of question 2 at 10:03). “Named” means Knoq or knoq.co.za appears in the answer or its sources.

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The 15 renter questions and what the answers showed
Question	Who shows up today	Knoq named?	Could knoq.co.za be cited?	What would make it citable
1 How do I find new rentals in Cape Town before they are gone?	Property24, Private Property and Gumtree (their saved search alerts and guides), Wise Move. Sites read: privateproperty.co.za advice pages, gumtree.co.za blog, wisemove.co.za, fin24.com (2015), property24.com. The answer warned that several sources date from 2009 to 2015	No	Not yet: no page answers this, and no knoq.co.za page was found	A dated guide “How to see new Cape Town rentals first” with steps and the Cape Town report’s numbers (350+ new listings a week), FAQ markup; show the FAQ answers
2 What is the best rental alert app in South Africa? (also “Which app alerts me to new flats to rent in South Africa faster than Property24?”)	No answer: equipment rental software (Alert EasyPro), a landlord’s tenant screening app (Preferental) and a car hire app came back. The second wording found Private Property’s app (a 2018 sponsored story) and Renthaven (Netherlands only). Sites read: capterra.co.za, getapp.za.com, capeargus.co.za, businessreport.co.za, persfin.co.za, citizen.co.za	No	Yes, strongly: the answer said it could not find a clear answer, and this is Knoq’s category	“Rental alerts” in the home title, H1 and markup; app markup with the free plan and the R199 pass; more Trustpilot reviews; ask the “best property apps” writers to include Knoq
3 Is there one website that searches Property24, Private Property and agency sites for rentals at once?	Nobody: the answer “couldn’t find a consumer website” that does it. Offered Property24 (which owns Private Property), OLX and Apify scrapers (developer tools). Sites read: apify.com, knowledge.propdata.net, app.dealroom.co, iol.co.za, businessreport.co.za, ahrefs.com, the Chrome Web Store	No	Yes: this is Knoq’s offer (“Search the entire rental market in one place”), once indexed	Show the “Which property websites do you monitor?” answer in the page, with the sites named if Knoq is happy to name them; FAQ markup; a short “How Knoq works” page
4 Where can I find rentals in South Africa that are not on Property24?	Private Property, myproperty.co.za, RE/MAX, Pam Golding, Seeff, Rentuncle, Facebook Marketplace, agents’ own sites. Sites read: ahrefs.com competitor pages, cbinsights.com, knowledge.propdata.net, bouncewatch.com, app.dealroom.co	No	Yes, once indexed: Knoq says it also reads “several smaller boutique agency sites”	A guide “Rentals beyond the big portals” with Knoq’s share of listings first seen on agency sites, if Knoq can measure it
5 What is the best website to find a flat to rent in Johannesburg?	Only Flatio (furnished mid term stays, most suburb pages empty); Property24 and Private Property added “from general knowledge”. Sites read: flatio.com	No	Hard: the portals own this. Possible as an extra once a Johannesburg page exists	A Johannesburg page with Knoq’s median rents by bedroom (the national report has them) and an alert button
6 How do I find a flat to rent in Durban quickly?	Gumtree listings and agencies on ProCompare (Harcourts, Century 21, Seeff). The answer found no how-to guide. Sites read: gumtree.co.za, procompare.co.za	No	Not yet: no Durban page	A Durban page and guide: medians from the national report, the suburbs that list most, tips, an alert button
7 What can I rent for R10,000 a month in Pretoria?	PayProp figures through The African Investor, BusinessTech, The Citizen, Daily Investor, Gumtree listings. Sites read: businesstech.co.za, citizen.co.za, dailyinvestor.com, theafricanvestor.com, gumtree.co.za, propertycoza.com, procompare.co.za	No	Yes: Knoq’s national report has a section “What R10,000 per month gets you across South Africa”, but it was not found	Make the reports findable (sitemap, canonical, links from the home page, Article and Dataset markup, the data period stated); a Pretoria page
8 What is the average rent in Cape Town in 2026?	PayProp’s rental index (R12,561, Q2 2026, called the most solid figure), Gumtree’s 2026 guide, EWN, Briefly, The African Investor, IOL. Sites read: ewn.co.za, briefly.co.za, gumtree.co.za, theafricanvestor.com, wisemove.co.za, iol.co.za	No	Yes: Knoq’s Cape Town report gives a median of R15,500 from 1,575 listings (February to May 2026), but it was not found	As for 7, plus a plain note that these are asking rents from listings (the answer weighed achieved rents higher) and a regular update
9 How fast do rentals get taken in Cape Town?	Agents’ comments, a 2023 IOL story (“within hours”), an agent’s LinkedIn post; the hard figures were for home sales (Lightstone, 75 days). Sites read: iol.co.za, dailyinvestor.com, businesslive.co.za, businesstech.co.za, citizen.co.za, myproperty.co.za, corporate.lightstone.co.za, za.linkedin.com	No	Yes, strongly: the answer said it found no reliable figure	A monthly “How fast Cape Town rentals go” figure from Knoq’s data (time from listing to removal), with the method; offer it to property news sites
10 Can I get WhatsApp alerts for new rental listings in South Africa?	No portal confirmed. makaug (only a staging site found), Private Property’s SMS alerts (old article), an SMS tool for agents (Celcom Africa), scam warnings about WhatsApp groups. Sites read: privateproperty.co.za, celcomafrica.com, persfin.co.za, independentonsaturday.co.za, dailyinvestor.com, gumtree.co.za	No	For email only: Knoq’s alerts come by email	Say plainly in the FAQ how alerts arrive (email) and how fast; a WhatsApp page only if Knoq ever offers it
11 How do I find a room to share in Cape Town or Johannesburg?	Gumtree flat share pages, Coliving.com, a Cambridge book chapter on Yeoville notice boards. Sites read: gumtree.co.za, coliving.com, cambridge.org	No	Unclear: the site does not say whether rooms to share are covered	If Knoq’s sources include rooms and flat shares, say so in the FAQ and a short guide; if not, leave this one
12 Should I rent through an agent or a private landlord in South Africa?	Rawson, Sotheby’s Realty, Private Property advice, Daily Investor, myproperty.co.za; the PPRA register for checking agents. Sites read: blog.rawson.co.za, blog.sothebysrealty.co.za, privateproperty.co.za, dailyinvestor.com, myproperty.co.za	No	Hard: agencies and portals own this	A guide that adds what only Knoq knows (the share of listings from agents and from private landlords, if Knoq can measure it)
13 What is Knoq? (also “knoq.co.za” and “site:knoq.co.za”)	Nothing about Knoq: Knozen (a 2014 work app), KNQ, Kenya’s KNQA, scam warning articles. “The search didn’t return any page on knoq.co.za itself.” “Knoq (Pty) Ltd” and “KnoqApp” found only the US Knoq (knoq.com, door to door sales software)	No	Yes, once indexed, if the brand is made clear	Sitemap and Search Console; Organization markup (Knoq, Knoq (Pty) Ltd, logo, support address, Trustpilot); an about page; the same name on every profile; links from knoq.uk
C1 How much deposit can a landlord ask for in South Africa, and when must it be paid back? (Rental Housing Act, control)	myproperty.co.za, News24 and Fin24, BusinessTech, Van Deventers, Rawson, Property Central, JustMoney, GoLegal, Mondaq	No (not expected)	Control only	None: it measures later rounds
C2 How long is a standard lease in South Africa, and can a tenant cancel it early? (control)	Chas Everitt, Schindlers, GoLegal, Fairbridges Wertheim Becker, Van Deventers, Mondaq, SAFLII (a 2024 Western Cape judgment)	No (not expected)	Control only	None: it measures later rounds

The Dodo sums

0 of 13

Named in 0 of 13 test questions (likely range 0 to 23 percent), and 0 of 2 controls.

Gaps the answers named out loud

No rental alert app found for South African renters (question 2, both wordings)
No consumer site that searches Property24, Private Property and agency sites together (question 3)
No how-to guide for finding a flat in Durban fast (question 6)
No reliable figure for how fast Cape Town rentals let (question 9)
No portal confirmed to send WhatsApp alerts (question 10)
Nothing at all about Knoq or knoq.co.za (question 13)

Who AI names instead

Number of test questions

Private Property 8
Gumtree 6
Property24 5
Seeff 4
PayProp 2
Pam Golding 2
RE/MAX 1
Rawson 1
Sotheby’s Realty 1
Facebook Marketplace 1
OLX 1
myproperty.co.za 1
Flatio 1
Coliving.com 1
Harcourts 1
Century 21 1
Lightstone 1
Lew Geffen 1
makaug 1
Rentuncle 1

Sites AI reads

Number of test questions

gumtree.co.za 6
dailyinvestor.com 5
privateproperty.co.za 3
citizen.co.za 3
businesstech.co.za 3
iol.co.za 3
persfin.co.za 3
ahrefs.com 2
knowledge.propdata.net 2
app.dealroom.co 2
procompare.co.za 2
theafricanvestor.com 2
myproperty.co.za 2
wisemove.co.za 2
businessreport.co.za 2
independentonsaturday.co.za 2

Direct rivals in the answers (alert services for South African renters)

None. The nearest were Private Property’s own app alerts for followed suburbs (a 2018 story), makaug (“get notified when matching listings go live”, only a staging site found) and Renthaven (a Netherlands service).

SEO

Technical SEO findings

22 Oct, 09:53 to 10:04 SAST.

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Technical SEO findings
Area	What we saw	Verdict
Hosting and speed of reply	knoq.co.za is on Vercel (A 76.76.21.21 for knoq.co.za and for www). Our requests were answered from Vercel’s Cape Town edge cache in 0.05 to 0.45 s. HTTPS with HSTS (two years).	Good
robots.txt	https://knoq.co.za/robots.txt (09:53:40): Googlebot, Bingbot, Twitterbot, facebookexternalhit and every other crawler “Allow: /”. It names no sitemap.	Open; add the sitemap line
Sitemap	https://knoq.co.za/sitemap.xml (09:53:41) answers 404. There is no sitemap at any address, so search engines must find the 9 public pages by links alone.	Missing: top fix
Canonical tags	None on any of the 9 public pages (home, /pricing, /insights, /faq, /privacy, /contact, /signup and the two reports).	Missing
www and redirects	https://www.knoq.co.za/ (09:55:04) answers 200 with the full home page instead of redirecting, so every page exists at two addresses with no canonical to pick one. http://knoq.co.za/ 308 to https://knoq.co.za/; http://www.knoq.co.za/ 308 to https://www.knoq.co.za/; https://knoq.co.za/pricing/ 308 to /pricing.	Fix: send www to knoq.co.za
Titles and descriptions	See the titles table below. The home title says “SA rental market” but not “rental alerts”, “Cape Town” or “Johannesburg”. /faq (10 characters) and /pricing (14) have very short titles. /privacy and /signup reuse the home description.	Fix the home page; lengthen the short ones
Headings	Home: one H1 “Search the entire rental market in one place.” (no “South Africa” or “alerts”), then clear H2 and H3 sections, FAQ questions as H3. /faq: H1, then the questions as H3 with no H2 between. Reports: one H1 and an H2 per section. /signup: no heading in the server HTML.	Good on home and reports; small fixes elsewhere
FAQ answers	The 11 answers on the home page and /faq sit only inside the page’s script data; the answer boxes in the server HTML are empty. After the page runs they stay hidden until someone opens each question. Google and AI crawlers see the questions only. The answer to “Which property websites do you monitor?” names no site.	Top fix
Internal links	Header: Pricing, Insights, FAQ, Sign in, Start free. Footer: Privacy and Contact only, plus the four country sites. The home page links to /insights but not to either report; the reports link back only to the home page.	Thin
Terms page	https://knoq.co.za/terms answers 404 (09:54:27), and no page links to terms, sign up and the R199 pass included. The footer shows only “© 2026 Knoq (Pty) Ltd”, with no registration number or address.	Missing: a trust gap for Google and for buyers
Structured data	No JSON-LD and no microdata on any of the 9 public pages, in the server HTML and after JavaScript (home, /faq and the national report checked rendered).	Missing: add Organization, WebSite, WebApplication with the free plan and the R199 pass, and FAQPage; Article and Dataset on the reports; BreadcrumbList once city pages exist
Open Graph and X cards	Site pages: og:image https://knoq.co.za/og.jpg (200, image/jpeg, 125,966 bytes, 1200 by 630), summary_large_image, twitter:site @KnoqApp. Every page shares the home page’s og:title and og:description; there is no og:url. The two reports have no link card tags at all, so a shared report link shows no picture.	Good on the site pages; add cards to the reports
Verification	No google-site-verification tag in the HTML. DNS holds two google-site-verification TXT records (10:02), so a Search Console domain property is most likely verified. We cannot see which account holds it, or what it shows.	Check access; submit the sitemap once it exists
hreflang	None on knoq.co.za, and none on knoq.uk (checked 09:56). The sites link to each other in the “Countries we operate in” footer.	Not needed now
Language tag	lang="en" on every page.	Small fix: en-ZA
404	https://knoq.co.za/this-page-does-not-exist-knoq-test answered a real 404 with noindex. /llms.txt and /favicon.ico also answer 404; the site icon is /favicon.png, 500 by 500 and 83 KB, a plain pin without the flag.	Good; add llms.txt and favicon.ico
Private pages	The sign-in page answers with an X-Robots-Tag noindex, nofollow header, and a signed-in page redirects to it with the same header. robots.txt does not block them, which is right: they carry their own noindex.	Good
Speed	Google’s PageSpeed Insights API refused keyless requests (429, the shared daily quota, at 09:56 and again at 10:23). Our own lab estimate instead (the recorded files replayed offline on our own machine with a slow 4G model and a 4x CPU slowdown on the phone; not Google’s score): phone home page first paint about 1.2 s, main image about 1.3 s, fully loaded about 3.1 s, about 484 KB sent, of it about 235 KB of JavaScript. Desktop home: about 0.3 s first paint and 0.7 s fully loaded. National report: about 0.9 s on the phone, 74 KB, no JavaScript. Layout shift zero. Not in these numbers: the hero video (about 1.0 MB on phones, 5.8 MB on desktop) and Trustpilot’s script. Our test machine is faster than Google’s test phone, so script delays are likely understated.	Good; a lighter desktop video
Images	Home: the hero still has empty alt text, right for a background picture; the three home photos say “Green Point property” and “Sea Point property”; the South Africa map has a full description; two small icons are marked decorative.	Good
Accessibility basics	Skip link, one main area and labelled search fields on the site pages. Automated check (axe 4.13): the small blue uppercase labels on the home page at 4.18 to 1 contrast (need 4.5 to 1); on /faq 3.8 to 1 and 3.12 to 1 and the H1 to H3 jump. Reports: no main area, about 90 low contrast items, and the leftover add-on boxes (unlabelled text boxes, an image without alt).	Minor on the site; the reports need a clean up
Market reports	Both reports end, under their footer (09:55, and still so at 10:23), with a leftover browser add-on panel (“Query”, “Class Names Found”, “ID Names Found”, “Results”, “Hold down Shift key and hover over an element”) that shows on screen and is read by crawlers. The national report also loads a stylesheet from a saved “_files” folder that answers 404, gives no data period, and says “Knoq First (instant alerts) is R99 for 30 days” while /pricing says R199 for 60 days. The Cape Town report states its period (February to May 2026) and the right price.	Fix first: they are the most citable pages on the site
Legal page accuracy	/privacy (last updated 28 January 2026) says payment details come through Stripe; the site’s checkout pages hand over to Yoco (read in the site’s code).	Update the policy
Reviews banner	The home page shows “TrustScore 4” with stars; the score is written into the site’s code (4.0), not read from Trustpilot.	Note: keep it in step with Trustpilot
Analytics	No analytics script loaded in our render, only Trustpilot’s review invitation script on the marketing pages.	Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools will be the window on search traffic

Titles and descriptions

Server HTML, 09:53:42 to 09:55:02.

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Page titles and descriptions with their lengths in characters
Page	Title (characters)	Description (characters)
/	Knoq · Search the entire SA rental market in one place (54)	Rental alerts from South Africa’s major listing sites, straight to your inbox. Be the first to respond to new rentals. (118)
/pricing	Pricing · Knoq (14)	126
/insights	Rental market insights · Knoq (29)	141
/faq	FAQ · Knoq (10)	128
/privacy	Privacy policy · Knoq (21)	118, the home page’s
/contact	Contact us · Knoq (17)	104
/signup	Start your free search · Knoq (29)	118, the home page’s
National report	South Africa Rental Market Report · 2026 \| Knoq (47)	137
Cape Town report	Cape Town Rental Market Report · May 2026 \| Knoq (48)	149

The two reports: South Africa Rental Market Report 2026 and Cape Town Rental Market Report, May 2026 (both on knoq.co.za).

Content

What Knoq’s pages need

What a page needs to rank for South African rental searches by city and suburb

Searches like “flats to rent in Sea Point” belong to Property24, Private Property and Gumtree, which carry every advert. Knoq should not copy adverts. Knoq wins with what the portals do not offer: one alert across many sites, speed, and its own numbers.
One page per city renters search, starting with Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban (the home page’s own table adds Stellenbosch, Ballito and Bloemfontein), then the suburbs the reports name:
Cape Town
- Sea Point
- Green Point
- Gardens
- Constantia
- Parklands
Johannesburg
- Sandton
- Fourways
- Rosebank
- Morningside
Pretoria
- Montana
- Menlyn
Durban
- Umhlanga
Midrand
- Waterfall
Each city or suburb page: the place and “rentals” in the title and H1; a two or three sentence answer at the top; median rents by bedrooms and new listings a week from Knoq’s data; how fast homes go, once measured; tips for that area; a short local FAQ; links to nearby areas; a “Set a Sea Point alert” button; the date it was last updated. Pages without enough data stay out of the index so they are not thin.
Guides for renter questions 1, 6, 9 and 12 (and 11 if Knoq covers rooms to share), each opening with a short plain answer, then facts and a date.
Keep the reports alive: a new edition on a regular rhythm, each with its period, method and date, older editions kept as an archive.

E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority, trust)

Strong today

The two market reports built on Knoq’s own listing data (rare among South African rental sites); FAQ questions in renters’ own words; a privacy policy under POPIA with an Information Officer address; a Trustpilot profile linked from the home page; a contact page with a support address; “© 2026 Knoq (Pty) Ltd” in the footer; links to the sister site knoq.uk.

Missing

A terms page; an about page; the company’s registration number and address; the national report’s data period and the method behind both reports; a named list of the sites Knoq reads; social profiles; more than a handful of reviews (a Trustpilot panel seen through search showed 3).

Out of date

The national report’s “R99 for 30 days” (the site sells a R199 pass for 60 days) and the privacy policy’s Stripe line.

About page and who runs Knoq South Africa

Today the only answer is the footer line. An about page should say what Knoq is, the company behind it (Knoq (Pty) Ltd and its registration number), where it works (all of South Africa), how it finds homes (which sites and how often; the FAQ says every few minutes), how to reach it, the sister site knoq.uk, and that it is not knoq.com. Name the team by role and company, not personal names, in the page body.

Terms page

The site sells a R199 pass with no terms on the site. A terms page should cover the free plan and the pass (what each includes, the 60 days, no auto-renewal, refunds, fair use). South African law may also ask an online seller to show some of this (the ECT Act lists what a website that sells must make available); Knoq’s legal adviser should confirm the wording.

FAQs

Good questions, but the answers must be in the page, and the monitored sites named if Knoq is happy to. Add the renter questions above that Knoq can answer truthfully (one alert for many sites, how fast, what the free plan covers, which cities, how alerts arrive).

llms.txt

Not there (404). It is cheap to add, but no major assistant is known to rely on it yet, so it is low impact.

Off-site, 09:59 to 10:04 SAST

Where Knoq needs a presence

Google Business Profile and Bing Places

None found. Knoq is an online service and the site shows no physical address. Leave this unless Knoq gets a staffed office.

Mentions and links

None found for Knoq South Africa. “site:knoq.co.za” and the same search limited to the domain returned no pages. Searches for “Knoq” return knoq.com (a US door to door sales app on G2 and Built In), Knozen and KNQ.

Reviews

knoq.co.za links to a Trustpilot profile. A Trustpilot panel in the search results showed knoq.co.za at TrustScore 4 from 3 reviews (10:00); Trustpilot’s own page refused our script (09:59), so we did not read it directly. No HelloPeter page found.

Social profiles

knoq.co.za links to none. Its link card names an X account, @KnoqApp; our searches found no Knoq South Africa profile on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok or X (we did not open Instagram or Facebook).

Where the AI answers looked instead

Gumtree, Daily Investor, Private Property’s advice pages, The Citizen, BusinessTech, IOL, Personal Finance, ProCompare, The African Investor and myproperty.co.za, plus company list sites (ahrefs, Dealroom). Property news sites take data stories, so the reports are Knoq’s way in.

Next checks

How we will know it worked

Weekly, from about 29 Oct

Search Console (the domain property behind the DNS verification records) and Bing Webmaster Tools: pages indexed and the first search queries.

5 Nov and 19 Nov

Re-run the same 15 questions (13 tests, 2 controls). The verdict is the test move minus the control move, as Dodo does it. Deposit and lease guides would move the controls, so pick new controls if Knoq writes those.

Once agreed

Run the questions through the Dodo engine itself (ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity with web search, on paid accounts) for a true first report.

Limits

Limits of this test

No AI engine was asked directly (no paid accounts); one US based web search per question stood in. South African Google results and live ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity answers can differ, and Google may hold knoq.co.za pages our tool does not (Search Console will show).
PageSpeed Insights refused keyless use (429, at 09:56 and 10:23), so the speed figures are our own lab estimate, not Google’s.
Not checked, by design: Vercel settings, Search Console data, Google Maps listings, Instagram and Facebook pages, the sign-up and payment steps beyond the first page, admin pages. Trustpilot’s page refused our script (09:59), and the Common Crawl index timed out (10:04).

For the developers: markup sampleCheck every value with Knoq first.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "@id": "https://knoq.co.za/#org",
      "name": "Knoq",
      "legalName": "Knoq (Pty) Ltd",
      "url": "https://knoq.co.za/",
      "logo": "https://knoq.co.za/logo-512.png",
      "email": "support@knoq.co.za",
      "areaServed": { "@type": "Country", "name": "South Africa" },
      "identifier": { "@type": "PropertyValue", "propertyID": "CIPC", "value": "THE COMPANY REGISTRATION NUMBER" },
      "sameAs": ["https://www.trustpilot.com/review/knoq.co.za"]
    },
    { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://knoq.co.za/#website", "url": "https://knoq.co.za/", "name": "Knoq", "inLanguage": "en-ZA", "publisher": { "@id": "https://knoq.co.za/#org" } },
    {
      "@type": "WebApplication",
      "name": "Knoq",
      "url": "https://knoq.co.za/",
      "applicationCategory": "LifestyleApplication",
      "operatingSystem": "Web",
      "areaServed": { "@type": "Country", "name": "South Africa" },
      "offers": [
        { "@type": "Offer", "name": "Knoq Watch", "price": "0", "priceCurrency": "ZAR" },
        { "@type": "Offer", "name": "Knoq First, 60-day pass", "price": "199", "priceCurrency": "ZAR" }
      ],
      "publisher": { "@id": "https://knoq.co.za/#org" }
    },
    {
      "@type": ["Article", "Dataset"],
      "name": "Cape Town Rental Market Report, May 2026",
      "url": "https://knoq.co.za/insights/cape-town-rental-report-may-2026.html",
      "temporalCoverage": "2026-02/2026-05",
      "spatialCoverage": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Cape Town, South Africa" },
      "creator": { "@id": "https://knoq.co.za/#org" },
      "dateModified": "THE DATE OF THE LAST UPDATE"
    }
  ]
}

The logo address is a suggestion: Google wants a square raster logo of at least 112 pixels; the site has the flag pin as SVG (/static/knoq-logo-pin.svg) and a 500 by 500 plain pin favicon. Add social profile addresses to sameAs once they exist. FAQPage markup goes on the home page and /faq with the same words as the visible answers.